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Iowa Republicans Pass Bill to Ban Most Abortions in About Six Weeks, Governor to Sign on Friday

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – The Republican-led Iowa state legislature passed a bill banning most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy in a special marathon session that lasted until midnight Tuesday. Gov. Kim Reynolds immediately said in his statement that the bill will be signed into law on Friday.

The bill, despite vociferous and sometimes tense opposition from Democrats and pro-abortion advocates protesting in the Capitol, allowed Republican-only lawmakers to thrive in an extraordinary one-day legislative row that lasted more than 14 hours. Passed with support.

Just after 11 p.m., demonstrators who remained on the floor booed state senators and yelled “shame on you” in the minutes after the bill passed.

Reynolds ordered an unusual hearing after the state Supreme Court rejected in June to reinstate a virtually identical law signed in 2018.

“The Iowa Supreme Court questioned whether it would pass the same legislation Congress did in 2018, and today we have a clear answer,” Reynolds said in a statement. “The voices of Iowans and their democratically elected representatives can no longer be ignored and should not delay justice for the unborn baby.”

Abortion is legal in Iowa up to the 20th week of pregnancy. The bill will take effect immediately if the governor signs it on Friday. This would prohibit nearly all abortions if heart activity was detected. This is usually around the 6th week of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant.

After Reynolds signed the bill into law, preparations were already underway to file legal challenges in court and block the bill.

“The ACLU of Iowa, Family Planning, and the Emma Goldman Clinic are committed to taking action to govern the bodies, lives, health and safety of Iowans, including prosecuting to stop this reckless and cruel law. “We remain committed to protecting reproductive rights,” Iowa ACLU Executive Director Mark Stringer said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the North Central State Planned Family System announced that it will refer patients scheduled for abortion out of state in the coming weeks. The organization is the largest abortion provider in the state and will continue to provide care to patients who show up before cardiac activity is detected.

This measure permits abortion in limited circumstances after the time of pregnancy when cardiac activity is detected. For example, rape if reported to law enforcement or a health care provider within 45 days. Incest, if reported within 145 days. If the fetus has a “non-life-fitting” fetal abnormality. If the pregnancy is endangering the life of the pregnant woman.

For much of the morning and afternoon, pro-abortion chants rang out in the rotunda and from the rooms where state legislators and senators met in the morning and afternoon. Pro- and anti-legislators of the bill alternately delivered their views to members of both houses for nearly four hours in total.

Sarah Aide of the Iowa Catholic Convention encouraged lawmakers to vote yes.

“The fetus is a distinct human life with its own values, its own DNA, its own right to life and legal protection,” she said. “As a nation and as a society, we should be committed to protecting all vulnerable people everywhere.”

Fertility nurse Hilary McAdoo said Tuesday that her two daughters motivated her to speak out.

“Being able to conceive doesn’t mean you have to be a forced mother,” she says. “People before me want to manage the female body without understanding how it works.”

McAdoo said the six-week cutoff was “impossible and irresponsible”.

Laws such as those in Iowa prohibit abortion if a “fetal heartbeat” is detected, but the concept is not easily applied to medicine. That’s because by the time advanced technology can detect the first visual movements, the fetus isn’t yet a fetus and doesn’t have a heart. Medical experts say that the embryo is called a fetus from the 11th week of pregnancy.

In 2019, a district court ruled that the 2018 law was unconstitutional, based on decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Iowa Supreme Court that recognized women’s fundamental constitutional right to abortion.

After both agencies overturned those rulings last year, the governor called for the 2018 reinstatement of the law. But the state high court stalled last month without ruling on the pros and cons of banning abortion, leaving the law permanently blocked.

Reynolds then recalled lawmakers to Des Moines.

Democrats proposed a wording change to expand the exception, but it was quickly defeated.

“Women in Iowa have less freedom than they did a week ago, and that’s because of the Republican work in Congress and the governor,” said House Minority Leader Jennifer Confast, who said if women in Iowa He expressed concern that there would be immediate chaos if he was freed. Bills are signed into law.

“We will take every day from now until Election Day to let voters know that the Republican Congress voted too extreme, too far, and against the interests of the general public in Iowa,” she added.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and handed over abortion law to states, most Republican-led states have significantly restricted access to abortion over the past year. Dozens of states have banned it, with limited exceptions, and one state, Georgia, has banned abortion after heart activity has been detected. Several other states have similar restrictions pending court rulings.

https://fox40.com/news/national/ap-us-news/ap-iowa-legislature-will-take-up-6-week-abortion-ban-during-special-session-tuesday/ Iowa Republicans Pass Bill to Ban Most Abortions in About Six Weeks, Governor to Sign on Friday

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